


False Dichotomy: 29 Minutes

by MostlyAnon



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Depression, F/F, F/M, Fluid Sexuality, Friendship/Love, Hardest damn challenge I ever wrote, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect Kink Meme, Past Relationship(s), Relationship(s), change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 08:06:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3201755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyAnon/pseuds/MostlyAnon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She didn't ask for this. She isn't sure she would have taken her life back as a gift, given a choice. There was never any choice at all.</p>
<p>Dying changes a person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. VERY IMPORTANT NOTE

This was one of the hardest challenges I did for the kink meme, and I have debated putting it up for a long time. The person who requested it was almost immediately mobbed by some of the most respectful and helpful commenters on the meme, leading to a civilized, constructive conversation. In part, this is what put the words on the page; what could easily have become a horrible argument became something wonderful. I've included the original post and a link to the thread below. Every part of this fic is meant with the upmost respect.

This fic also touches on depression and anxiety, specifically minor panic attacks. Some readers may appreciate knowing this.

_So this anon is in a... strange situation._

_She's lesbian. I love my significant other and I hate having sex with men - yeah, I've tried._

_But uh, I love Garrus to bits and I'm pretty sure he's an exception? (a fictional character exception. Of course...)_

_My girlfriend is in a similar situation with Thane and Mordin; she gets turned off by straight porn period and then... then there's Thane._

_So we've got a prompt! FemShep has always considered herself lesbian. Thought Ashley was sexy. Didn't care much for Kaidan's advances. Enjoys the asari like any good human male._

_Except then she meets Male!Alien!LI and it's like shit this guy has a dick but fuck if I wouldn't want to do this guy I love him SO MUCH._

_Please, anons? We're fine with any male alien LI :)_

http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/5736.html?thread=25018472#t25018472


	2. Chapter 2

1.  
The first time she kisses a woman, (she’s thirteen, hidden in the locker room, and she can’t remember the girl’s name, not anymore, but she still remembers the bite of panic and confused dread,) it’s all soft lips and warm tongue, the slide of skin against skin; there is no better taste.

2\.   
Her mother doesn’t understand and never really does; her words are carefully constructed and script perfect. Shepard imagines her reading a memo beforehand, like she does when she’s preparing for active assignments. Classified, for eyes only: Re: Procedures in Place for Initial Response to an Admiral’s Daughter’s Sexuality.

3.  
Another sole survivor and a night that feels like too much. She is alive and she feels guilt, she feels relief, she feels drunk, she feels Shepard’s mouth on hers. She feels good.

4.  
Ashley’s eyes widen the first time she officially meets her new superior officer. Fate has a mean sense of humor and Shepard spends the first few weeks of Ashley’s new assignment silently reciting the Alliance’s fraternization regulations.

5\.   
Kaiden kisses Shepard without warning. He’s trying to be sweet, but his lips are rough and his jaw feels like sandpaper, his tongue is too hard, too demanding, and he smells like a gym. She pushes him away and says something about the mission. Years later, she’ll remember it, sitting on a crate and talking to Garrus about how the Cerberus crew has been treating him.

6.  
Liara’s laugh is pure seduction, the product of a species that bred for attraction. Her skin is smooth, warm to the touch, her hands wicked and insatiable. Shepard watches Liara’s hips sway and licks her lips, addicted to the taste of azure on her tongue.

7.  
Shepard is no sleeping beauty, though Miranda was a royal sight to wake up to. Initial attraction is immediately extinguished as reality crashes back-- she was Alliance, she was a Spectre, she was dead, she is alive, she is Cerberus, she is alone.

She is tired, but she is no sleeping beauty.

8.  
Joker is the first thing that feels real. The Illusive Man, dying, Cerberus, the Reapers, it’s too much like a bad dream, too far from anything she once knew. Joker is the one who takes her home.

There is a certain torture that stems from how intimately she used to know her ship. The Normandy SR-2 is almost Heaven, it’s almost the same. But almost Heaven is actually Hell; every change reminds her of what she’s lost.

9.  
She stares out the window above her bed with fear choking the breath out of her. It’s easy to forget where and when she is. Miranda thinks she doesn’t remember, that her mind is protecting itself by blocking out the memory, but nothing can truly defeat death. Shepard dies a thousand times, staring into space, wondering where her crew went. For the first time since Akuze, she’s truly alone. Like Akuze, she doesn’t know if she’ll survive it. She doesn’t know if she wants to.

10.  
The air is thick with sex and sweat, Kelly’s taste in her mouth. It’s familiar, but detached; when she shuts her eyes, their breath roars in her ears, too fast, too loud, too much. She’d hoped company would help, but her cell is still a void. Her voice isn’t cruel when she dismisses the other woman, but she isn’t kind, either. It isn’t about love, no matter what the other woman thinks. Nothing is the same as how she remembers it. She feels like her old armor: brittle, burnt up, and only an echo of what it used to be.

11.  
Aria wants to see Shepard. (One foot in front of the other.) Omega smells like desperation. (Focus on the mission.) In Afterlife, she buys ice brandy from a turian bartender. (Don’t think about Garrus.) Aria’s words are uninterested, but her eyes are intrigued. (Don’t think about Liara.)

12.  
She takes the rifle Garrus offers and looks through the scope. She’s vivid, invincible, for the first time since she woke up, she can take a deep breath. He’s a comforting warmth behind her, her shoulder against his chest; they were never one for casual contact, but neither can help it now. United in the belief that they’d lost each other, she cants her head toward him when he leans down to speak in her ear. His voice strokes down her spine as he outlines the battle before them; her shot is precise despite it and he hums in approval.

13.  
Shepard and Garrus stare at each other in silence. He will always wear Omega’s goodbye kiss on his skin and betrayal on his spirit. Scars rip jagged trails over her cheeks, like bloody tears. He keeps his old armor, because hers is lost to her, and doesn’t comment when she presses her fingers to the jagged edge. It isn’t easy, even with Garrus at her back, but it’s easier.

14.  
The Illusive Man isn’t happy with Shepard’s obvious disinterest in continuing a relationship with Kelly or pursuing one with Miranda.

15.  
Shepard sits on a crate more often than she sleeps in her quarters. She questions Garrus for his take on the crew, their mission, strategies for the upcoming battles; he never questions why she’s so often there. When he tells her about Kelly making a pass at him, she laughs for the first time since her resurrection, laughs until she can’t breathe. He watches her with an air of amused confusion. If she has any doubts as to Kelly’s role on the ship, they’re gone now.

16.  
Ashley is vicious with her scorn. Her attack scalds nerves raw from Harbinger, burns into Shepard’s skin like the Praetorian’s choir. There is no defense against the truth. She can force no words through her lips, lungs empty of air.

Garrus has never been one to fight battles for her, and she’s never been one to let anyone steal her kills, but really, there isn’t anything more to say.

17\.   
Liara’s voice is professional, smooth, and detached. (Shepard hears Aria’s voice echoing in her mind.) It is enough that Shepard wonders if she made it up, wonders if her memories of her lover were actually something Cerberus crafted and planted there, to make this moment more painful, to widen the divide between her old life and her new.

Garrus and Kasumi follow her out of the office, down the stairs. Kasumi stops, looks back. She starts to ask: “Wasn’t she Shep’s---”

Shepard stops, the question twisting the knife in her back. She doesn’t turn to see what interrupted Kasumi’s question; she’s too busy trying to force breath out of her lungs. The attacks are almost familiar, by now.

She expects the pain and the panic. What she doesn’t expect is the fury.

18.  
Shepard beats her knuckles raw against the bag kept in the hangar, lulled into a false sense of peace by the rhythm of her fists, dull thud after dull thud. Her implants fight a Sisyphean battle to heal her before she splits her knuckles open again. Blood drips on the floor, a counterpoint to her beat.

EDI reports it to Miranda and runs a feed from the security cameras to the XO’s monitor. Miranda watches in silence for a long minute, debating with herself before she finally leaves her office.

Garrus says Shepard’s name without looking up when the doors to the main battery open, only confirming Miranda’s decision as the right one.

19.  
Her heart turns over, skips a beat when she hears his footsteps, smells the faint scent of pine and gun oil on the air. Her beat doesn’t falter, but she’s no longer lost inside her head. Her attention is on him, blood humming in anticipation.

She’s always felt breathless when she looked at Liara, panic attacks aside. She feels like she can breathe, when she turns to look at Garrus.

He tells her he has a lead on Sidonis.

20.  
She stands unmoved by his frustrated fury, but her eyes snap when he gets in her face, close enough she can feel his breath on her lips.

21.  
The ride back to the Normandy from Aeia is silent. Jacob and Miranda sit beside each other, shoulders touching, and Shepard understands that she is not meant to be a part of this. Jacob is struggling with something there can be no words for; Miranda's silent presence is singularly able to provide comfort.

Shepard stands, instead. She stares at nothing and wonders what it means that her mother hasn't returned her messages.

22.  
Shepard is exhausted, dirty, and aches, on the way back to the shuttle. Grunt's joyous triumph is no salve to the physical strain of defeating a thresher maw, no matter how infectious.

She stumbles when EDI relays the breeding request, dumbstruck by the idea. Garrus is less phased; he laughs until she slugs him in the shoulder, smiling despite herself.

23.  
Her orgasm washes away the vestiges of her dream, leaves her panting and awake in her bed. She stares at the skylight but feels no panic, sees no stars.

24.  
On the Citadel, she stumbles and stops, watching a turian female go past. Garrus follows her gaze and they both watch in silence as the female continues on; Garrus because he is admiring the view and Shepard because she’s wondering if she does.

He decides he needs a new mod for his rifle; she decides that she definitely does not have a turian fetish.

25.  
She suggests it before she can stop herself and for a moment, they stare at each other with wide eyes, both wondering the same thing: had she really just said that? But when he gives her an out, she doesn’t take it.

Maybe she has a Garrus fetish.

26\.   
“Are you sure about this?” he asks her in an undertone, his hands on her waist and their foreheads pressed close. She can barely focus on the words beyond the delicious thrum of his voice.

No, she isn’t sure about it, but she hasn’t been sure of anything since her resurrection. She is less uncertain of him than she is of anything else in her life, and when she lifts her head to answer him, the kiss feels like coming home.

27.  
She’s sliding, she’s falling, she’s dead again, she knows it, she can’t catch her breath, can’t catch her grip, can’t stop it--

Three strong fingers and a grip like a vice, defiant of gravity and fate alike. Shepard looks up and Garrus smiles. “Hell, Shepard, you weren’t worried, were you?”

28.  
Liara watches Shepard as the yahg falls, the way the commander stalks forward, wary of a feint. Shepard puts two rounds through each of the thing’s eyes before she holsters her gun.

She expects Shepard to go to Garrus and she does; the other woman crouches beside the turian, laughs in relief when he opens his eyes and mutters something Liara can’t hear. It is an unexpectedly intimate moment and Liara shuts her eyes against it.

29\.   
It isn’t a rule-exception thing, a before-after thing. It isn’t male-female thing, a turian-human thing. It’s a Shepard-Vakarian thing.


End file.
